A lovely essay I was glad to read. Lear's Radical Hope is on my short shelf of books I hold onto as elegant examples of what the humanities can achieve that other disciplines cannot. He succeeds in the very difficult task of trying to bring the thinking and choices of Plenty Coups, the Chief of the Crow people, into focus in a way that neither romanticizes it nor dismisses it, but credits it as an example of existential knowledge (rather than merely a cultural, i.e. not-quite-true, inheritance) and ethical bravery.
It's not without flaws, but the ethos of the book––brilliant but still marked by intellectual humility––is quite remarkable. If you put it next to the facile, dismissive, arrogant thinking of so many of the "thought leaders" of today, you might feel like crying.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I've often been referred to Lear's writings, but have found them a little bit elusive and hard to locate the "argument." This helped to see the value of his larger project and makes me want to return to his work with fresh eyes.
Yeah it's not always easy going, at least until you get the hang of it. That Freud essay I link to is great and very clear, though obviously not characteristic of most of his work. Wish I could recommend one book in particular, but in my mind they're all kind of one extended book. The most recent one probably isn't his best, but it has a few essays that go down more easily than is typical.
Thank you for sharing. I had not heard of Lear's death until just now via this post. This deeply saddens me, as his writings have had a profound impact on my thinking and inner life. I never met him, nor spoke with him, but still, it is a loss. I can think of no better way to honor him than to quote one of the many points at which his wisdom was piercing...
Taken from Wisdom Won from Illness: The Psychic Efficacy of Plato’s Cave
The hypothesis I want to explore is that the Republic is not simply a book that discovers that spirit and appetite are distinct parts of the soul, but that it facilitates the process by which they come into line with reason, at least, for a special reader. That is, the Republic is, and is meant to be, a therapeutic activity for the right kind of reader. We shall need to learn more about who the right kind of reader is. For the moment, let us say that he or she is someone like Glaucon, who I take to be an ideal interlocutor in the conversation. And let us consider the allegory of the Cave, which is widely considered to be the most powerful image in all of philosophy. I want to claim that, for the right kind of reader, the Cave is not merely a powerful image or a captivating literary device; it is an imaginative activity that justifies the soul. By “justify” I do not here mean, “provide a rational defense of,” but rather bring the soul into the condition of justice, harmonize the parts. If I may bring the two meanings together: the justification (rational defense) of myth in a philosophical work like the Republic is that it serves to justify the soul— that is, bring spirit and appetite into line with reason. It is thus part of the activity— should we be ideal readers— by which we constitute ourselves as integrated persons.
Thanks, Damon, for sharing this. I had not heard of Jonathan Lear. There is some profound thinking here. Now, when my wife asks why I'm just staring into space, instead of saying "I'm thinking," I can say I'm "contemplating the human condition." Which I fear will not go over any better, but it will make me feel better. Seriously, I need to read this one or two more times.
I was introduced to Lear in my reading group, and unlike other participants, I found it rather unimpressive. The periodic descents into Freudian argle-bargle were repellant to my more empiricist habits of mind. The entire disquisition on mourning the Confederate dead at Gettysburg was reminisicint of the large conversation that was inspired by Reagan's visit to Bitburg cemetery, about which he evidences no familiarity. He uses terms such as "world super-ego" which appears to be a neologism of his own invention (there's no other recorded use of it anywhere, at least according to my Google search at the time), and offers no explanation as to its meaning whatsoever. The book's overall impression to me at the time was of someone straining to be "deep" in a very familiar 21s c. academic way (similar to Mary Oliver's poetry) and, to some extent certainly, succeeding, but delivering little that couldn't be accomplished simply by telling people to "think more." It also gave me a headache.
But what if you're wrong about him, and his Freudian argle bargle actually has something to teach you? Obviously I think it does, as do, fwiw, people like JM Coetzee and Charles Taylor, both genius or near-genius level intellects, both of whom I interviewed for my profile of him.
I don't expect you to deny the evidence of your own experience, but possibly worth considering that the deficit is in you and not him.
Yes, of course. Always a possibility. Maybe it's not nonsense, maybe it's just going over my head. Just as the skeptic can always say, "Or maybe you're being bamboozled." There's no proof available and to some extent it's almost a question of different aesthetics.
All I can say is I didn't throw the book down when I encountered "world super-ego" as about 99% of my fellow historians would have, I persisted, I read every word, I really did try to find things worthwhile in it (hence the headache) and in the end, just couldn't.
As for Freud, I've tried with him, too. (Camille Paglia's insistence he's essential still nags at me.) But there too, I come down on the side of Alfred L. Kroeber's famous 1920 paper, "Totem and Taboo: An Ethnologic Psychoanalysis." (Kroeber, btw, was far from hostile to psychoanalysis himself; he'd been psychoanalyzed in Europe, and even practiced it himself, but he had little patience with using those ideas as a skeleton key to unlock the mysteries of history and society.)
A lovely essay I was glad to read. Lear's Radical Hope is on my short shelf of books I hold onto as elegant examples of what the humanities can achieve that other disciplines cannot. He succeeds in the very difficult task of trying to bring the thinking and choices of Plenty Coups, the Chief of the Crow people, into focus in a way that neither romanticizes it nor dismisses it, but credits it as an example of existential knowledge (rather than merely a cultural, i.e. not-quite-true, inheritance) and ethical bravery.
It's not without flaws, but the ethos of the book––brilliant but still marked by intellectual humility––is quite remarkable. If you put it next to the facile, dismissive, arrogant thinking of so many of the "thought leaders" of today, you might feel like crying.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I've often been referred to Lear's writings, but have found them a little bit elusive and hard to locate the "argument." This helped to see the value of his larger project and makes me want to return to his work with fresh eyes.
Yeah it's not always easy going, at least until you get the hang of it. That Freud essay I link to is great and very clear, though obviously not characteristic of most of his work. Wish I could recommend one book in particular, but in my mind they're all kind of one extended book. The most recent one probably isn't his best, but it has a few essays that go down more easily than is typical.
Thank you for sharing. I had not heard of Lear's death until just now via this post. This deeply saddens me, as his writings have had a profound impact on my thinking and inner life. I never met him, nor spoke with him, but still, it is a loss. I can think of no better way to honor him than to quote one of the many points at which his wisdom was piercing...
Taken from Wisdom Won from Illness: The Psychic Efficacy of Plato’s Cave
The hypothesis I want to explore is that the Republic is not simply a book that discovers that spirit and appetite are distinct parts of the soul, but that it facilitates the process by which they come into line with reason, at least, for a special reader. That is, the Republic is, and is meant to be, a therapeutic activity for the right kind of reader. We shall need to learn more about who the right kind of reader is. For the moment, let us say that he or she is someone like Glaucon, who I take to be an ideal interlocutor in the conversation. And let us consider the allegory of the Cave, which is widely considered to be the most powerful image in all of philosophy. I want to claim that, for the right kind of reader, the Cave is not merely a powerful image or a captivating literary device; it is an imaginative activity that justifies the soul. By “justify” I do not here mean, “provide a rational defense of,” but rather bring the soul into the condition of justice, harmonize the parts. If I may bring the two meanings together: the justification (rational defense) of myth in a philosophical work like the Republic is that it serves to justify the soul— that is, bring spirit and appetite into line with reason. It is thus part of the activity— should we be ideal readers— by which we constitute ourselves as integrated persons.
Thanks, Damon, for sharing this. I had not heard of Jonathan Lear. There is some profound thinking here. Now, when my wife asks why I'm just staring into space, instead of saying "I'm thinking," I can say I'm "contemplating the human condition." Which I fear will not go over any better, but it will make me feel better. Seriously, I need to read this one or two more times.
I was introduced to Lear in my reading group, and unlike other participants, I found it rather unimpressive. The periodic descents into Freudian argle-bargle were repellant to my more empiricist habits of mind. The entire disquisition on mourning the Confederate dead at Gettysburg was reminisicint of the large conversation that was inspired by Reagan's visit to Bitburg cemetery, about which he evidences no familiarity. He uses terms such as "world super-ego" which appears to be a neologism of his own invention (there's no other recorded use of it anywhere, at least according to my Google search at the time), and offers no explanation as to its meaning whatsoever. The book's overall impression to me at the time was of someone straining to be "deep" in a very familiar 21s c. academic way (similar to Mary Oliver's poetry) and, to some extent certainly, succeeding, but delivering little that couldn't be accomplished simply by telling people to "think more." It also gave me a headache.
But what if you're wrong about him, and his Freudian argle bargle actually has something to teach you? Obviously I think it does, as do, fwiw, people like JM Coetzee and Charles Taylor, both genius or near-genius level intellects, both of whom I interviewed for my profile of him.
I don't expect you to deny the evidence of your own experience, but possibly worth considering that the deficit is in you and not him.
Yes, of course. Always a possibility. Maybe it's not nonsense, maybe it's just going over my head. Just as the skeptic can always say, "Or maybe you're being bamboozled." There's no proof available and to some extent it's almost a question of different aesthetics.
All I can say is I didn't throw the book down when I encountered "world super-ego" as about 99% of my fellow historians would have, I persisted, I read every word, I really did try to find things worthwhile in it (hence the headache) and in the end, just couldn't.
As for Freud, I've tried with him, too. (Camille Paglia's insistence he's essential still nags at me.) But there too, I come down on the side of Alfred L. Kroeber's famous 1920 paper, "Totem and Taboo: An Ethnologic Psychoanalysis." (Kroeber, btw, was far from hostile to psychoanalysis himself; he'd been psychoanalyzed in Europe, and even practiced it himself, but he had little patience with using those ideas as a skeleton key to unlock the mysteries of history and society.)